Amount of Priming Sugar?

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thesanch

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I'm preparing to bottle my First Brew (A Holiday Ale) on Saturday 1/31 and would like to be prepared with the correct amount of priming sugar I need for this batch. The recipe called for 5.5 gallons of water to make a 5 gallon batch and it came with 5oz of priming sugar. However, I'm not sure how much water/wort was lost to grains, hops and boil off. I probably lost around 1/4 a gallon to blow off and another 1/5 - 1/4 gallon dumping some wort out to create some room at the head of the carboy.

Without knowing the exact amount of beer, how much priming sugar should I use? What's the typical amount per gallon?

Here's a picture of the 5 Gallon carboy - maybe someone just knows how much this is... I'm planning to mark my carboy in the future.


 
The default is 5 oz which is normally wrong and you will be over carbonated depending on the style - use the tool schweaty posted and make sure you are bottle conditioning at least 1 week near 70 degrees.

5oz will work for sure but I seem to always be over carbed with 5.
 
I always hear the 4oz average for most 5 gallon batches. At least that is what I read in Palmers "How To Brew" book.
 
As a cook i was taught that you measure sugar as a liquid because it is about the same density of water. so a cup of sugar is 8 oz of sugar. 5 oz is roughly a cup of flour.
 
Well, generally I use a cup of sugar.. and I've never had a problem with over-carbination or anything.
 
Thanks for that link... what style would you think a Holiday Ale falls under?
 
If you are not going to calculate it for that specific style and conditioning temperature, I'd say 4 to 4.5 oz for a 5 gallon is probably a better general amount. 5 oz seems pretty high.

You have to weigh it. Corn sugar density varies even brand to brand.
 
Assuming you don't have to worry about blowing up bottles, what is the taste impact of using more than 5 oz sugar, and having more CO2?
 
Offhand, I'd say if you really were to turn up the priming sugar, you'd eventually start to increase the alcohol content, not to mention they would take longer to condition. Too much CO2 deadens the taste, for me.
 
Get some gallons jugs and fill with water. Add 1 gallon to your bottling bucket. Get some nail polish and place a 2" tick mark at the gallon level. Add one gallon and repeat adding lines. At 5 gallons place another line in between the 4th and 5th. This is 4.5 gals.

After you rack into the bottling bucket you'll know how much priming sugar to use. It's usually .8 oz to 1 oz per gallon depending on how much carbonation you want.

Additionally, NEVER use the cup measurement for priming. ALWAYS weigh it.

As an experiment I want you to take your 5 oz of sugar and place it in a cup. Now, lift it 2 inches from the counter and bring it down hard on the counter. You will notice this compresses the sugar (actually it pushes out the air between the granuals). Repeat this and it will compress even more. Get my point? If you weigh it it is constant.
 
Yeah, you really have to weigh it. I weighed 3 different kinds of dextrose side by side once and there was as much as 25% difference in volume. One was a 4.5oz bag from AHS, one was some brand I bought from 1fast400.com and another was bulk from AHS and they were all different. Besides the compacting, just the particle sizes are different.

Unless you could somehow normalize it in a food processor or something.
 
I'm preparing to bottle my First Brew (A Holiday Ale) on Saturday 1/31 and would like to be prepared with the correct amount of priming sugar I need for this batch. The recipe called for 5.5 gallons of water to make a 5 gallon batch and it came with 5oz of priming sugar. However, I'm not sure how much water/wort was lost to grains, hops and boil off. I probably lost around 1/4 a gallon to blow off and another 1/5 - 1/4 gallon dumping some wort out to create some room at the head of the carboy.

Without knowing the exact amount of beer, how much priming sugar should I use? What's the typical amount per gallon?

Here's a picture of the 5 Gallon carboy - maybe someone just knows how much this is... I'm planning to mark my carboy in the future.



Is that a 6 or 5 gallon carboy. If it is a 6 used the 5 ozs else use less.
 
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